1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to transactional databases. Specifically, the present invention relates to an improved interface for controlling transactions in a transactional database which models manufacturing.
2. Background Information
Transactional database systems are well-known to those skilled in the database management art. Some transactional databases are widely distributed systems wherein data for the database is maintained in a central location, and users may update that information by executing "transactions" in the system which are discrete series of operations performed on data in the database. Transactional databases are used for modeling a number of things, including, but not limited to, objects on a factory floor. A transactional database used for modeling objects on a factory floor is known as a manufacturing execution system and allows managers in a factory to allocate resources, generate work orders, generate bills of material, and other items in a system to adequately manage the manufacturing process. Thus, managers may model such items as plants, specific areas within plants, labor resources, equipment resources, activities, materials, and other objects typically used within the manufacturing environment for scheduling, production, and other management functions. Such databases also provide the capability to monitor activities within the factory and determine whether resources are being appropriately allocated.
Typically, such transactional databases provide means for operators at given workstations within the manufacturing environment to update the database as material is manufactured or the status of resources in the factory is changed. For instance, specific machinery may be brought down for repair or placed into different operating modes, or particular items may be manufactured in the factory. The database must be updated to reflect these changes. For example, objects or records representing raw materials may be input to a process which generates additional records representing intermediate or complete products. The records or objects representing the raw materials are then either deleted or adjusted in quantity to reflect the consumption of the materials in the factory. Other transactions specifically related to activities in the factory are performed in manufacturing execution systems and are typically performed under control of operators of workstations in the factory.
Various products have been known in the prior art to model manufacturing execution using such a transactional database. Two products include the WorkStream and FlowStream products available from Consilium, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. Although these products provide a wide variety of transactions and other activities which may be performed within the transactional database for monitoring manufacturing activities, they have also suffered from several deficiencies of user interaction and control of transactions. For example, The WorkStream product allowed operators at workstations in the factory to perform a variety of transactions. Unfortunately, these transactions were under control of a command line interface and required that the operator input a response, typically one of an options list of transactions to be performed. Also, during the execution of transactions for the operation, no feedback information was provided to the operator indicating that the transaction was being performed. This user interface also suffered for the defect that it did not provide sufficient information to the user to indicate the time and date that the transaction was being performed, and whether the transaction was in fact capable of being performed at that stage in the manufacturing process. Another deficiency of prior art manufacturing execution systems is that if conditions varied from nominal operating parameters the operator could not indicate this information in any way in the traditional transactional database. Lastly, these prior art systems also provide no analog to prior manual methods of tracking manufacturing, such as maintaining a log or notebook of activities on the factory floor. This defect of the prior art will be discussed in more detail below.
Due to regulatory requirements, in order to obtain and maintain Food and Drug Administration approval, for example, prior art monitoring of the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals requires specific detailed journal entries at each step of the manufacturing process in a "notebook" which is hand-carried workstation to workstation in a factory. Some steps in the manufacturing process are also required to be monitored by a supervisor or other personnel. Operator and/or process supervisor approval (in the form of signatures or "signing off") is sometimes required to validate each manufacturing step. Operator personnel are often required to record information in the notebook such as amount of raw material consumed, amount of final product generated. Also, some manufacturing operations may require that time, or temperature, and speed of manufacturing equipment (for example) be recorded. Some operations also require that deviations from nominal operating conditions be monitored and recorded in the notebook. The manual notebook entry methods used in the prior art suffer primarily from the shortcoming that the notebook must be hand-carried from workstation to workstation in the factory for each step of a process for a particular manufacturing batch. This approach is also subject to problems typically associated with the entry of data on paper, such as the modification of data, wear and tear and/or destruction of the notebook, and the fraudulent entry of data. The secure storage of the notebook also poses a problem. Finally, steps which need to be performed in a particular sequence may be performed out of order using this prior art method. In summary, the prior art manual notebook suffers from many shortcomings.
It is apparent that there is a dichotomy between the automated transactional database used for manufacturing execution systems, and the regulatory requirements for auditing the manufacture of certain items. Thus, a need has arisen for improved user interaction and a user interface for such transactional databases, to automate entry of information in a manufacturing execution system, maintain rigid control of transactions in a defined sequence, and secure maintenance of information related to transactions. A need has thus arisen for a richer set of functions than is currently provided by either prior art manufacturing execution systems and/or manual recordation of certain information, especially those required for regulatory purposes.